Appetite-Regulating Hormones in Focus as First Nobel Prizes Announced

Research into hormones that regulate appetite is leading the race for the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, set to be awarded on Monday, the opening day of this year’s Nobel season.

With more than one billion people worldwide affected by obesity, experts suggest that the hormone glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1) could be recognised for its pivotal role in metabolic regulation.

A new generation of drugs using GLP-1 agonists, including Ozempic, Wegovy, and Mounjaro, has become a critical tool in combating obesity and diabetes globally.

“Many are guessing that it (the Nobel Prize in Medicine) will go to the people behind GLP-1,” said Lars Brostrom, science editor at Swedish public broadcaster Sveriges Radio, speaking to AFP.

If awarded to GLP-1 researchers, it would reinforce the trend of US institutions dominating Nobel Prizes in the sciences, announced this week in Stockholm.

However, the backdrop of US political developments could cast a shadow over this achievement, given budget cuts to science programmes under President Donald Trump’s administration.

Since January, the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) has terminated 2,100 research grants, totalling around $9.5 billion, along with $2.6 billion in contracts, according to the independent database Grant Watch.

“In the post-war period, the US has taken over Germany’s role as the world’s leading scientific nation,” noted Hans Ellegren, secretary general of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which awards Nobel Prizes in physics, chemistry, and economics.
“When they now start cutting research funding, it threatens the country’s position.”

As is often the case with major scientific discoveries, determining who exactly deserves the Nobel can be difficult, given the contributions of many researchers worldwide.

Some names frequently speculated for the GLP-1 Nobel Prize include:

• Jens Juul Holst – Danish physician
• Joel Habener – Professor of Medicine at Harvard
• Daniel Drucker – Canadian endocrinologist
• Svetlana Mojsov – Yugoslav-born American chemist

Although drugs such as Ozempic are relatively new, the discovery of GLP-1 itself dates back to the 1980s, making it a timely candidate for recognition.

In a related field, research on ghrelin, a hormone that stimulates appetite, could earn a Nobel Prize for two Japanese researchers, Kenji Kangawa and Masayasu Kojima, according to David Pendlebury, head of research analysis at Clarivate — a firm that predicts potential Nobel winners based on citation impact.

Pendlebury noted that this research would form a “nice bookend” to Jeffrey Friedman’s 1994 discovery of leptin, another appetite-regulating hormone.

“We have a combination of very nice discoveries: a hormone that stimulates appetite, a hormone that suppresses appetite, and this may also play into speculation about a GLP-1 prize,” Pendlebury told AFP.

Other potential candidates highlighted by Clarivate include:

• Andrea Ablasser – German medical professor
• Glen N. Barber – American virologist
• Zhijian “James” Chen – Chinese-American biochemist, for work on the cGAS-STING pathway, a fundamental mechanism of innate immunity
• John E. Dick – Canadian biologist, for identifying leukaemia stem cells and establishing their relevance to therapy failure

For the Nobel Prize in Physics, scheduled for Tuesday, experts have cited research into metamaterials, which has generated significant attention in recent years.

British physicist John B. Pendry has been frequently mentioned for his theoretical work on an “invisibility cloak”, a method to redirect electromagnetic fields around objects.

The Nobel season continues with:

Each Nobel Prize includes:

• A diploma
• A gold medal
• A monetary award of 11 million Swedish kronor ($1.2 million)